Kiss of Midnight

The Midnight Breed, Book 1

By: Lara Adrian

Narrated by: Hillary Huber

Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

He watches her from across the crowded dance club, a sensual black-haired stranger who stirs Gabrielle Maxwell's deepest fantasies. But nothing about this night---or this man---is what it seems. For when Gabrielle witnesses a murder outside the club, reality shifts into something dark and deadly. In that shattering instant she is thrust into a realm she never knew existed---a realm where vampires stalk the shadows and a blood war is set to ignite. Lucan Thorne despises the violence carried out by his lawless brethren.

A vampire himself, Lucan is a Breed warrior, sworn to protect his kind---and the unwitting humans existing alongside them---from the mounting threat of the Rogues. Lucan cannot risk binding himself to a mortal woman, but when Gabrielle is targeted by his enemies, he has no choice but to bring her into the dark underworld he commands. Here, in the arms of the Breed's formidable leader, Gabrielle will confront an extraordinary destiny of danger, seduction, and the darkest pleasures of all.

©2007 Lara Adrian (P)2010 Tantor

A Whole New Take on Vampire Mythology

Lara Adrian's captivating Vampire mythology is completely unique. She has taken one or two of the "Hollywood" elements, but oh my goodness, the rest of her Vampire world is unlike anything I have read before and I cannot get enough of the richly detailed backstory that is flawlessly woven into the main story. The exposition is paced perfectly - giving enough detail to be relevant and intriguing, adding more suspense and mystery to the novel as the plot progresses.

We are immediately swept up into the story by Hillary Huber's sultry voice. Her pacing and timing are perfect and she is wonderful at breathing life into the characters. Each male has a distinct personality which she brings to life with clever and competent use of different accents and varying timbre, making it easy to listen and envision the story as it happens. Not a lot of female narrators can pull off the smoldering Alpha-Male characters without sounding androgynous and awkward. Hillary's portrayal of Lucan is just plain sexy. She adds color and character to each male in the book - breathing just the right amount of passion, restraint, desire, anger, self-loathing and acidic hatred into each character. Her female voices are decent, but they all seemed to sound the same to my ears. If Hillary continues narrating the series, the only thing that I would view as an area of development would be for to give the female characters a bit more of a range and flavor, as she does so amazingly with the male characters.

Great story - GREAT reader!

Hillary Huber, you rock! What an amazing example of how an audio book should be done! The story was compelling and complex and through it all she gave each and every character a solid (and unique) voice and personality. Her male characters were amazing! Even when 4 or 5 of them were having a conversation, I never had a problem telling them apart. Her female characters - the same. Using only her beautiful voice (and obvious acting skills) Hillary captivated me from beginning to end. Not to mention that any woman who can read very descriptive sex scenes (like the ones in Kiss of Midnight) without having even so much as a waver in her voice - well, suffice to say, she is GOOD!

Lara, please write more books! The story was so good and the characters so well developed - I can hardly wait for the next one!

LOVED IT!

YEA! I found another great series!!

I love books in series! From BDB to Lords of the underworld to Fallen Angels to the Dark-Hunters! This first book promises to be one of my new favs! I am so glad the entire series is available! I am going to have a warm and cozy fall!!

outstanding in every way

Outstanding in every way. The writing is sucks you into the stories world without any slowing at all. Can't wait to read and listen to the next in the Breed series.

I LOVE this series.... but...

I have already read the series on my iPad so I wanted to listen to it on audiobook while at work. Big mistake! The narrator Hillary is HORRIBLE! She was supposed to be speaking for grown women and a grown man but she had them sounding like teenaged valley girls. When she wasn't speaking like the cast of Mean Girls, she was drraaaagggggiinngg her words in order to sound like a mans deep baritone. 🤮 I tried to skip to book 3 (my fav) but when her annoying voice came in, I paused it then promptly returned all the books in this series to Audible Escape.

Rather predictable

In my humble opinion, this particular book is a cross between Twilight and J.R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood series. It's not that it's BAD, as far as books go. It's just nothing special. I almost wish I could go back in time and NOT choose this book. But if you're looking for something with some predictable vampire violence and the standard romance novel combined, you'd probably enjoy this book.

Robotic narrator but good start to a series.

The narrator reminded me of a computer generated voice for most of the book. Either she got better as the book went on or I eventually was able to ignore it.

Same concept as a lot of other vampire romance books but still different enough to keep my interest. I will eventually buy the next book but for some reason she wasn't able to make me want to binge listen like I have other series. Not enough lose ends and supporting character depth?

vampy fan

This book is amazing. Love the excitement along with the vampy heated sex. Highly recommend.

Second read through

The first time I read this book I was in my early twenties. Now I am in my late 30’s and of course it hits differently. I still love the midnight breed and will continue rereading the series. There was a rumor 10 years ago about a tv show or move. I hope they bring it to the screen. This would be a great take on vampires away from twilight.

Intense

I thought this book had just the right amount of intensity. I like stories where the man can not help himself. He feels drawn to the woman over and over despite his best intentions. The narrator does a decent job with the female voices and she makes an effort to make the words come alive, but the males voices come across unfeeling. I enjoyed listening to the story and finished it in 2 days. The concept for how vampires were made makes a lot more sense than the original story and makes wanting to become a vampire easier....smile. Good story....looking forward to listening to more from this author.